Downtime
by Bryon Nightshade
Summary: Loosely connected sketches from Hunter Base between wars. Topics include: learning janken-pon; boredom as a life goal; Zero's list of the most dangerous things; recreational heckling; failing one's Intimidation roll; and more to be added over time.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: My next big story is taking considerably longer than I'd hoped for. For now, here are some sketches._

 _When I learned janken-pon, I learned it as "janken-poi". I don't know why that pronunciation stuck with me. Were people actually saying it like that? Or did it just sound like that to an American kindergartner? The world may never know._

* * *

"I'm not budging," said X. "We need to find a different way to settle this."

Zero grimaced. X could be accommodating, even passive, on a lot of things. When he dug in on an issue, though, he was impossible to shift short of orbital bombardment. Even then, Zero could easily imagine X still standing in the midst of smoldering ruin, that stony expression still on his face, saying, "No, _you_ move."

'Kill him' was an option that immediately presented itself, but Zero had grown used to smushing that instinct when it came to X.

Still… a pointer in the right direction? "Spar you for it," Zero said.

"That'd take too long."

" _This_ is taking too long," said Zero with a scowl.

"I want to get away from the idea that everything has to be settled by fighting," said X.

"But some things _do_ have to be settled with fighting," Zero objected.

X gave an extremely reluctant nod. "Yes, but… not this. There are other ways of resolving conflicts. Neutral arbitration, for example."

 _Definition not found._ Typical. Zero tried to puzzle it out. "So… we each fight a common opponent, and the one that wins in a better time wins the argument?"

"No, no," said X hastily. "Not at all. Like, we both submit our arguments to a third party, and that person decides."

"That sounds suspiciously like a debate," said Zero.

"So?" said X innocently.

"Do you think I'd volunteer for a swimming competition with Klaxon Crab? Do you think I'd volunteer for a flying competition with Shriek Skyray? Do you think…"

X winced. "I get it, I get it. So… a different sort of neutral arbiter, then."

"Like what?"

"Chance."

Zero cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"We do something with even probabilities, and we both agree that whichever result turns up we'll go with that outcome. The classic example is flipping a coin, but I don't have one. I don't think you do, either."

Zero frowned. He didn't want to say why.

"I suppose there's always janken," X said, almost chuckling.

This time Zero couldn't restrain himself. "What?"

X reacted to that. "Janken-pon?" he tried. "Rock-paper-scissors?"

 _Definition not found._ "Explain it to me."

X's expression changed. "Alright," he said, suddenly enthusiastic. "It's conflict resolution, but with no hint of violence. The two of us say together, "jan, ken, pon", and we shake our hands on each beat. On "pon", we both reveal one of three shapes.

"Rock," he said, holding up a closed fist, "paper," his fingers splayed out, "and scissors," two fingers stayed up in a 'v' shape. "The shapes have different relationships that determine who wins. Scissors cut paper, so if you show scissors and I show paper, your scissors would win. Rocks crush scissors, so rock wins that matchup. And paper… uh… wins against rock."

"Why?" said Zero, worried he'd missed something.

"You know, I'm not sure," X said uncertainly. "I've wondered about that myself. I guess it wraps the rock up or something?"

"But the rock maintains its integrity," said Zero, frowning. "The scissors and the paper are destroyed when they lose, but the rock is the same as it was before."

"It's just to make the game make sense," said X. "It's… symbolic."

"Oh." Zero didn't ask what it was symbolic of. He hated metaphor.

"And if we both make the same symbol," said X, recovering his footing, "it's a tie and we try it again, but this time we say "aiko desho"—on the beats again, like "ai, ko, desho"."

Zero began to fret as to whether he'd remember all of this. It seemed simple, but that hadn't helped before.

"Want to give it a try?" X offered. "It's easier to learn by doing."

"What should I choose?" Zero asked.

"Whatever you want," said X, affably and unhelpfully.

Zero closed his eyes. He was very good at math—so much so that he kept going over it and over it, convinced it couldn't be so simple. There didn't seem to be any way to gain advantage. Any choice he picked had a one-third chance of victory, one-third chance of defeat, and one-third chance of a draw. That was basically random, wasn't it? That wasn't right. Games should be winnable.

Unless he'd misidentified what kind of game it was…

"Ready," said Zero.

X balled up his fist. Zero matched him. "Jan-ken-pon!"

Immediately X frowned. "Zero, you're not supposed to change your choice."

Zero affected blankness. "I thought it was a reflexes game," he said. "You try and counter the enemy's attack as it's happening."

"It's not," said X. "Once you make your decision, ahead of time, you can't change it."

Rust. That took things back out of Zero's comfort zone. "Okay," he said reluctantly. "Let's try again."

"How about we do… nine rounds?" said X. "Or two sets of five. That'll let you get the hang of it. Then we'll do it one more time to settle the argument."

"Okay," Zero said.

"Jan-ken-pon!"

Zero won the first set, three-to-two. That was reassuring. X took the second set by the same margin. It helped assure Zero that things were, essentially, random.

"This one's for real, then," said X, looking suddenly determined. "Ready?"

Zero closed his eyes. If things were truly random, it didn't matter which one he picked. In that case, he could pick whatever he wanted. Whatever made sense.

Scissors. It had to be. You cut through the weirdness of the world to get to truth. Scissors.

"Jan-ken-pon!"

And X was already smiling. Rock. "I win," he said.

Zero frowned. "Just one pass?" he said. "Even in sparring we do more than one pass."

"Best two-out-of-three, then," said X agreeably.

"Jan-ken-pon!"

"Best three-out-of-five," Zero hissed.

"Jan-ken-pon!"

"Jan-ken-pon!"

Zero looked disbelievingly at his own hand, as if it had somehow betrayed him.

"I think I win," said X. "Unless… you want to keep going?"

Zero bridled. Was there something about the game he wasn't getting? Or… or maybe this was just random variation working in X's favor, a bit of small-sample-size theater. Yes. That had to be it. Because even if it was a game of chance, Zero couldn't lose. He just… couldn't.

The original source of the argument long forgotten, Zero balled his fist up and set his face determinedly.

X cracked the smallest of smiles, and acted in kind.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's note: the Hunters are a small, tightly-knit, military-ish organization in a closed environment. The trick of military organizations is that they require a great deal of support. The so-called "tooth to tail ratio", of combatants to non-combatant support, can be 1-to-10 or even higher in modern militaries. That wouldn't work too well for the Hunters. The Hunters are a huge target, so bringing in humans would be (for robots) unethical; some human presence (at least for oversight) would be unavoidable but the instinct would be to minimize it. Worse, bringing in non-Hunter reploids would be hazardous because of the possibility of them being Mavericks. That means that all sorts of mundane tasks, from equipment maintenance to paperwork and the like, have to be done by the Hunters themselves. Submarines aren't a perfect analogy, but it's probably pretty close: you have to do everything yourself because the only people who could help are a literal ocean away from you._

 _All of which is to say: what follows is loosely based on true experiences. (Hint: he's an actual falcon.)_

* * *

"You ready to hear something awesome?"

"Sure, give me a jolt."

"I've got eighteen hours off coming up."

"No way!"

"Way!"

Rondel gave an envious glare at his fellow operator, Blue. "I haven't gotten more than twelve hours off duty at a stretch since… my socialization, maybe. There's always training, or drills, or maintenance, or admin, or some other rusted thing. How'd you manage this?"

Blue leaned back. He laced his fingers together behind his crested head, carefully avoiding his operator's headset. "Some of us are just that good," he said languidly.

"Break down," Rondel scoffed. "You're dropping something. You've gotta be."

"Nope! I've just never, even once, volunteered for something. I only have one secondary duty, and it eats around four hours a month. I don't have any tech certs so I'm not on the maintenance roster. When admin jobs come up, I let you go-getters who want promotions catch 'em. I'm doing everything I'm asked to do… and nothing more."

Rondel frowned. "Is that how I ended up with the liaison job? Are you saying you got offered that one first?"

Blue grinned.

Rondel's hands tightened. "What about training? I know you've at least got to do your Pyrrhus refresher, that due date's coming up fast."

"Not for another week," Blue lazily riposted.

"What about your weapons qual?"

Blue laughed. "Rondel, I'm gonna let you in on a secret: no one checks operators' weapons quals. No one cares. Think about it! We're operators. We direct the Hunters with weapons. They're the ones whose quals actually matter. If we're fighting, we're toast anyway, and everyone knows it, so no one bothers to police us about the quals."

A self-satisfied smirk came over Blue's avian face. "I tell you, I've got this operator thing figured out."

Rondel scowled. "You are awful."

"Awful smart, you mean."

"The work doesn't go away just because you're not doing it."

"Sure," said Blue, "but what good does it do _me_ to do that extra work? How is it to my benefit to bust my bolts? I can just let you weirdos who like that sort of thing handle it."

"We don't like it," Rondel said, scowl deepening, "we just realize that someone has to do it."

"Sure, sure," said Blue, unimpressed, "but I can't think of a single reason why "someone" should be me. This way functions. The work will get done. And I will be off the Floor, enjoying my eighteen hours off. I just hope I don't get bored!"

"There'll be little chance of that."

Rondel was taken aback. His mouth had been open to speak, but those hadn't been his words. Those words had come from behind. Both Rondel and Blue turned. Someone had been working on the console behind them; with the console's maintenance door open they'd never seen who it was. Now, the door went shut. As it did, it revealed a black carapace, red-and-peach flak plating, and shoulder-length blonde robot-hair.

"Alia," croaked Blue. "Didn't know you were back there. So… nice to see you."

"Is it?" the senior operator replied drily. Her expression was very much on the 'stern' side of professional. She reached down into her toolbag and retrieved a datapad. "I heard you're coming into some free time, Blue."

"That's not… er…"

"Well, what do you know," she said. "It looks like you do have a little excess capacity. Curious—no one else does. Let's take a closer look."

Tap-tap went her fingers against the pad. It was a terrifying sound for Blue. "Actually," said Blue, his voice sickly, "when I got off-shift, I was going to work on…"

"…your team reports?" Alia supplied.

"Right," said Blue, nearly collapsing in relief. "I'll be finishing up my team reports."

"Good call," Alia said, nodding. "Those are due tomorrow." Her face hardened. "But your mission reconstructions were due last week."

Blue winced as Alia's trap snapped shut on him. "Yeah, I'll work on those, too."

"And… it looks like you haven't turned in your analysis tasking. It's not delinquent yet, but you're the only one who hasn't submitted by now, so you're holding up the whole project."

"I'll get to it," said Blue, squirming.

"Yes, you will," Alia agreed. "I just locked you out of your recharge tube. It won't unlock until all of that datawork has been filed."

"What?!" exclaimed Blue. "You can't do that!"

His declaration didn't seem to register with her at all. Tap-tap. "You know, I've been meaning to shuffle secondary duties. Now's as good a time as ever. You just picked up OpSec officer and ComSec custodian. Those were Polly's second and third secondary duties—she'll be glad to be rid of them. Then she can take over Workcenter Supervisor from me, and you can take Maintenance Planner from her."

"Don't you need a class for that?" prompted Rondel, whose grin was approaching the limits of his face.

"Yeah," said Blue, but without much hope. "I haven't taken the class, I can't pick up Planner duty."

"It's a twelve-hour class held once a month," Alia said snappily. "The next offering is Tuesday. I've just signed you up for it."

Blue deflated a little more. "Thanks for making it convenient."

"No problem. Pick a technical track."

"Huh?"

"We maintain all our own equipment, you know that. Why do you think I was in that console? You were supposed to have picked a technical track and started your training weeks ago. Shame on me for losing that thread—but we'll fix that. What sort of equipment do you want to specialize in?"

"Uh…"

"Communications gear, you said? Perfect. It's a longer track, but it works well with your ComSec custodian duty. Nice synergy there. You've got three months to get your level one cert."

"But…" Blue objected, trying to remember, "doesn't… doesn't Yoko do our comms gear maintenance?"

"What if she transfers? Or gets promoted? Or dies? Or actually wants a few hours of free time every once in a while?"

No reply.

"Three months to get your level one," Alia repeated, "and six months to get your level two. Get studying."

"Yes ma'am," Blue mumbled.

"Oh, and you'll be taking your weapons requalification test in two weeks. You've been lapsed for too long, so you can't just get a renewal—you need to take the full version."

"What?" said Blue, starting. "I—I can't take the full test. I won't pass it!"

Alia's face held no pity. "Then you'd better find some time to get on the range and put in some practice hours."

"Alia," pleaded Blue, "we're operators! What operator has ever had to use their weapons training?"

"I have."

Blue had no words.

"All of us operators did, during the Second War. Mavericks raided Hunter Base to steal some tech, and they thought they'd make a detour to knock out our command and control. If this had been the First War, they might have succeeded, but we'd learned from that. We operators were able to hold the Watch Floor. We kept the Mavericks at bay until they had to withdraw. It contained the damage. It was a pretty big deal—we all got medals and everything. Hm… maybe I should develop a training product about that incident."

She appeared thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "Two weeks until your requal test, and if you fail it, you'll be on the range eighteen hours a day until you pass. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes ma'am," said Blue, defeated. Rondel was trying, and only partially succeeding, at keeping his laughter held inside.

"So!" said Alia, looking over the datapad one last time. "If my calculations are correct, you should have some free time in… June."

Blue stared at her.

She slid the datapad back into her toolbag, hefted the bag's strap over her shoulder, then, on her way out, whispered loudly, "You should probably get started."

When she was gone, a dazed Blue looked back at Rondel, who was shaking with suppressed laughter. "What just happened?"

"Dude!" howled Rondel. "You just got Alia'd!"


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's note: I subscribe to the theory that Zero has very little empathy. This stems in large part from his Wilybot origins: Wily didn't value that trait much in an absolute sense, and definitely didn't value it in a warbot designed to be the Destroyer of Worlds._

 _This presents a bit of a paradox. One-on-one combat, in all its varied forms, is based largely on reading your opponent's intentions. Anticipating their actions is a vital way to get an edge, to act earlier, to see through bluffs and feints, to sense vulnerability. You can do this a little bit without empathy—e.g. seeing someone raising their sword over their head—but it gives you almost no margin for error. Given this, Zero would seem to be operating under a fatal handicap._

 _What saves him? Two things. The less important is an aggressive style that dictates his opponents' actions. Bring your opponent into lethal danger fast enough and you can reduce their choices to zero (heh) before they can choose something surprising. The more important factor: a response time that's just that darn fast._

 _Think about it. X and Zero are both virtually unbeatable in combat. X manages it by modeling his opponents so completely that he can scope out all their possible actions and anticipate which they'll make, then counter appropriately. Zero is able to approximate that effect_ with reflexes alone _._

 _You know, in case he wasn't scary enough._

* * *

Five hundred games in, Zero found janken-pon more confounding than ever.

He'd gotten more proficient at the mechanics of it. He and X had matched their rhythms so that they no longer needed to say the words; they just shook their hands and went. That sped things up, allowing them to accumulate games in a hurry.

No, it was the results of those games that were driving Zero to distraction.

A game of pure chance should not allow anyone to win consistently. It was unreasonable to expect a pure 50-50 distribution, and it was common for an early leader to maintain a lead in terms of _number_ of games even as their winning _percentage_ decayed. Zero would have had no trouble if X was leading, say, 270-230 or something like that.

Instead, X was winning 372-128, an absurd percentage, and that percentage wasn't moving much.

"Again," Zero demanded.

"This is really the last round," said X. "I mean it this time—I'm due on patrol soon. Best two out of three."

Zero nodded his assent, and focused.

Jan-ken- _pon_!

Jan-ken- _pon_!

"I don't understand!" exploded Zero.

"I'm sorry," said X, chasing a short-lived smile off his face. "If I knew this was going to upset you so much I wouldn't have brought it up."

"It's not like that," said Zero, teeth grinding together. "I'm not upset about…"

"About…?"

Zero couldn't find the words. He changed tacks. "Are there any more rules to this game?"

"No," said X.

"And you're sure it's not a reflexes game?"

The corner of X's mouth twitched upwards. "I'm sure."

"Then it's random, right? It's really well-and-truly random. But…" Zero put a hand to his helmet. "…if it's random, I can't be losing this badly!"

X squirmed a little bit. Zero caught this instantly. "What is it?" he demanded.

X looked like he didn't really want to speak, but he did. "It's only really random if you only do it once in a while," he said. "Or if you only do it once, or with different people. Once you start doing a few games with the same person, it's not random anymore. It can't go back to being random, either."

Zero tried to understand this. It went poorly.

X noticed. "I'll try to help you get it. One more game—just one, then I have to go on patrol."

Zero nodded vigorously—anything that could help narrow the lead X had over him. He closed his eyes and reexamined the problem. There was no 'right' solution. Each of the options had equal probabilities of winning and losing. Nothing—augh, it was painful to admit this—nothing Zero could do could make one of the choices better than either of the others. They were all the same. That was why his record _should_ be closing. Maybe that would start now, and X's streak of impossible luck would normalize.

Zero opened his eyes, fixing X with his best "target acquired" stare. "Ready," he said.

 _Jan_. Zero focused intently on X's hand.

 _Ken_. His own hand was tightly clenched.

 _Pon!_ A dramatic, flourishing reveal.

And a rush of disbelief and disappointment.

X had chosen rock. He'd won. _Again_.

"I don't understand," said Zero.

"Here's your hint," X said, smiling. "You always start with scissors."

He turned and walked away. Zero's eyes were pointed in X's direction, but they were unseeing, unfocused. It shouldn't matter what he started with, he thought bitterly. It shouldn't make a difference. The odds were 50/50 no matter what, weren't they?

There was no subtlety, no hidden art to this stupid game; there were no synergies or clever combinations. It was embarrassingly shallow. It was just probability, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Zero hardly knew where his feet were taking him. When he came to his senses, he was entering the armory. That made sense. Few things made him feel better than weapons. He could do to feel better.

The door opened.

His saber was in his hand in a moment. He bent into a lunge automatically.

He cut himself off; he had to catch himself, one-handed, while extinguishing his saber.

"What was that about?" said a Hunter nervously. The Hunter had stumbled away and dropped what he'd been doing.

Zero rose again, tried to reassess. The Hunter was stripping and servicing busters. Zero had reacted to the barrel of the buster being raised in his direction when the action had, in fact, been quite innocent.

"You're not actually a threat," Zero said. "I won't kill you."

"Thanks?" said the Hunter, voice quavering.

Zero could almost feel X's voice prodding him. He decided he had to explain. "It looked like you had a weapon pointed in my direction. That's the third most dangerous thing you could have done."

"The third?" said the Hunter. He pushed the buster across the table so it was far away from him. "You nearly killed me over the _third_ most dangerous thing?"

Zero frowned. Explaining himself was hard. "I didn't 'nearly kill you'," he said. "I had at least two more milliseconds to abort the attack before striking you, and one-point-five milliseconds after that to make the attack non-lethal. I thought I reacted quickly."

The Hunter's eyes could hardly be wider.

Zero considered his words. "I reacted quickly to decide not to kill you," he amended.

The Hunter shifted so that the workbench was between him and Zero.

Even Zero could tell this wasn't going well. Try something else… "It's not as if you did the first or second most dangerous things," he hazarded.

"So you might have killed me if I'd done one of those?"

"Yes, of course," said Zero.

The Hunter shrank further. Whoops.

"But you didn't," Zero said clumsily. "And I don't think you would."

"Great," said the Hunter. "Could you… um… move out of the way? So I can go? I need… a maintenance check, yeah, that's it."

Even Zero noticed that people seemed to want to leave his presence unusually quickly. He was about to accede when something else occurred to him. "First, play some janken-pon with me."

The Hunter froze. "Do I have to?"

"I want you to," said Zero. It wasn't exactly 'yes', but it wasn't 'no' either. Zero was proud of himself. "Best two out of three."

Zero cupped his fist in his palm. The Hunter reluctantly mirrored him.

"Jan-ken- _pon!_ "

"Jan-ken- _pon!_ "

The Hunter scrambled backwards, terrified. Zero simply nodded. "Good enough. You can go now." He looked at the table again, and his mood brightened. "I'll clean up this buster," he said, gesturing to the half-stripped weapon on the table.

"Th-thanks," said the Hunter. Zero moved past him; the Hunter scrambled out of the room helter-skelter. He was dumped from Zero's memories moments later.

So, there wasn't anything inherently faulty with Zero and janken-pon. He could win against people other than X. That meant there was something unique to X that made him good at janken-pon.

What could it possibly be?

Zero needed to know. He had to know. He had to play more games; had to gather more information. What techniques was X using, what extra skills did he possess? Or was he, possibly, still riding an incredibly improbable run that would inevitably come to an end?

All Zero knew for sure was that he wanted to play more janken-pon with X. And that justified the top of his "most dangerous things" list.

But X was out. Aggravation. At least that other Hunter had left Zero some weapons to play with.

A slight smile on his face, Zero moved to the buster and began work.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's note: while most of the sketches here take place in "the good times", between X2 and X3, this sketch takes place after X3 to heighten the humor. We'll return to our regularly scheduled nonsense next time.  
No matter how hard your life has been, someone will remain convinced they've had it harder.  
Happy Veterans Day/Armistice Day._

* * *

"Thank you all for attending the opening ceremony!"

The enthusiasm in the voice was, if Iron Iguana had to guess, probably a little forced. It was still complimentary, though, and, given the purpose of the ceremony, it did make Iron feel nice.

It dulled the pain a bit. The pain never really went away, these days. Not completely. He could turn pain sensitivity down, of course, but never disable it. Disabling pain altogether meant you missed signals you really ought to heed. Pain, however unpleasant it might be, was a survival mechanism.

Then again… especially given the purpose of this place… maybe that wasn't needed anymore?

How novel.

"…And a special round of applause for our first inductees!"

Inductee. So _that_ was the word they were using. Huh.

He couldn't stay grouchy, not when people were clapping for him. He found it a little embarrassing, all things considered, but even that drained the grumpiness. He gave a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement. The other reploids around him gave similar gestures.

"These brave Hunters have done more than anyone could be expected to do. They've fought on through trials few others can imagine! Each one is a genuine hero. They've done their parts—they've done enough. That's why the Office of Reploid Relations, working with the Commander of the Maverick Hunters, has decided that their service is complete…"

Iron resisted the urge to snort. "Genuine hero", huh? That wasn't why he was here. If heroism alone let you pay off your construction, X and Zero would have retired ages ago. They were still in the thick of things. Then again, they would be…

Iron felt a twinge, and turned pain sensitivity down to the minimum setting. Those twinges would never go away, they'd told him. There comes a point where you just can't keep repairing something. Eventually things can't go back to the way they were. Parts might be interchangeable, sure, but some things couldn't be replaced without cost, and other things couldn't be fully replaced at all.

This wasn't retirement. This was a medical discharge. Iron, and the others here, had been wrung out as Hunters. They had been shot up and welded together one too many times. They had nothing left to give.

The humans, somehow, had found enough decency not to scrap them. Iron gave a wry grin at himself. Okay, that was a little too melodramatic. Things like that didn't happen, definitely not to Hunters. (People were applauding again. Apparently it was a good speech, or something.) Maybe, after years of seeing only humans' backs as they ran away from the danger he was running towards, he was just a little cynical about humanity.

They weren't being cynical about him. Not today, at least. He opened up a bit, allowed himself to appreciate the well-wishes.

Soon the unbearable ceremony was over, and the first class of Hunters was being escorted into a reception area. There, they were served refreshments- "refreshments" in this case being a selection of somewhat more exotic metals in a nanite slurry. It wasn't unlike an upscale E-tank, except that it lacked the bonus power packs E-tanks came with. Without them, a reploid's systems had to expend effort to "digest" the goodies—which made them function as a mild depressant.

All of which is to say that Iron was feeling rather pleased with the world as he looked at his fellow retirees.

Iron knew all of them, and most of them well. Sitting down at his table, though, was a relative stranger. "Hey," he said curiously, "aren't you Tom? Longshot Tom?"

"That's me," said the reploid. He looked like a blurred outline of a reploid, as if none of his outsides were quite the right shape. Like he was bent or dented everywhere. Iron wondered if it was his self-repair system itself that was beyond repair. "And you're… Leaping Lizard?"

Iron shook his head. "Iron Iguana. Leaping Lizard died in an ambush over a year ago."

"Did he? Shame." He grimaced. "They blend together sometimes... hey, at least I didn't call you Sting Chameleon!"

Iron ingested a bit of slurry to avoid answering. No one appreciated association with Mavericks, even as a joke.

"Say…" said Tom, "…what tours did you do?"

"What, to get hurt this bad?" said Iron.

"Yeah."

Iron considered. "Sure you wanna hear? It's a little grisly, an' this is a kinda… cheerful event."

"Like we could separate the two."

"Fair enough." Iron gathered himself. "Well, I was a Hunter before the First War. I was at the old Maverick Hunter HQ on _that day_. Armor Armadillo was cleaning out our floor. I took a direct hit from one of his rolling spins, but it knocked me far enough away that he lost track of me. Mangled most of my systems, though—couldn't even walk. I played dead while his cleanup crew followed behind—bad as I was hurt, it wasn't hard to be convincing. After they declared the area clear I crawled for the fire escape. I knew I wouldn't be able to escape that way, so I had to wait. When Zero came tearing through the place, it caused enough of a distraction that I was able to crawl through some of the flames and out of the building to cover.

"During the Second War, near the end, right as we were pinpointing their base location, the Mavericks hit us at Hunter Base. When they blew through the perimeter, we established a secondary barricade. It… wasn't much of a barricade, especially to that Violen guy. His spike ball went straight through it, into me, and smashed me to the wall. Then Serges started flinging explosives around… it dumped that part of the floor, and I went down with it. Of course, all three of those freaks could clear the gap, and I was out of the fight, and they were on the clock and couldn't come back around to finish me off, so I survived.

"Then, in the Third War, we sent out that expeditionary force to Doppler Town—but Doppler hit us first, and our best Hunters were out of the base already. The rest of us schmucks rallied to the defense of Hunter Base. I've never seen so many Bee Bladers. I took pieces of it, like the rest of us, but it wasn't until the wall came down that we were really hurt. Cost us Mace and a bunch of other good Hunters; I didn't quite get enough of it to be out of the fight.

"Then Maoh the Giant showed up. I thought I was dead for sure—not because he was gonna kill me, but because he was smashing through the rubble and I thought he'd step on me. Not quite. X got there first and blew the thing's head off. It fell backwards, away from the base… and on to me.

"After that, the techs declared that you can't overhaul micro-fractures throughout the entirety of someone's internal structure, and the third instance of devastating blunt-force trauma was a bit too much to repair. So here I am."

Tom appeared to be digesting this. He took a swig of his refreshment, slammed it down on the table, and sneered at Iron, "So. All _garrison_ duty, huh?"


	5. Chapter 5

Finally Rekir was alone! Now was his chance.

He popped the cap off the lubricant. He applied a generous coating until the surface glistened, then used a sliding motion to make the coverage complete and remove all friction. Grinning lustily, he pursed his lips, leaned in...

…and blew the first note from his lovingly-maintained trombone.

The first sound was a foghorn blast, a brassy statement of intent. The second slid readily into a scale. Another scale, one-half-step below, followed, then another, stepping down with each recursion until Rekir was a full octave below where he'd begun.

"That'll do for warm-up," he said. He replaced the cap on his small vial of slide oil and placed it aside. His eye wandered to the small birdhouse mounted to the wall. A candy-apple-red, canary-sized robot bird (which Rekir, in a fit of creativity, had named Red Bird) was glaring at him. "How do I sound?" he asked it.

"Tweet tweet!" it declared.

Rekir's shoulders slumped. "Well, what do you know anyway." He jerked his head at the birdhouse door. "Go home."

With a final, disdainful "tweet", Red Bird retreated into its birdhouse.

There wasn't much else in the room. Assistant Squad Leaders in the Maverick Hunters didn't have much in the way of accommodations. The room was barely nine meters square, and separated by the thinnest walls from more rooms just like it, but it was his, and that was good enough. It was certainly more than the rank-and-file got; they were jammed in three-to-a-room. He didn't have much in terms of possessions to fill the room, anyway. Then again, wasted space was its own kind of luxury.

Aside from the trombone, birdhouse, and recharge tube, the main feature of the room was a display case for Rekir's decorations. Someone versed in the pageantry of the Hunters would have noted an unremarkable number of individual citations, but a staggering number of unit citations and campaign ribbons. Such an observer might have concluded that Rekir was in the mix of all the fighting, and his units always won, but he was never singled out as the reason why.

That was just how Rekir liked it. It was safer that way.

At present, fighting wasn't directly on his mind. Playing the trombone was. He had fifteen minutes before he'd need to get in his tube and recharge, but that was fine. His lips could only hold out for about ten minutes of continuous playing before he lost his "chops" and the sound wandered. Things would work out.

When he began playing again, it was in the form of a gentle serenade—as gentle as a trombone could get, anyway. Which, apparently, wasn't gentle enough.

"Again? Seriously?!"

The complaint reached Rekir through the barely-there walls from the next Azzle's room. It must have been quite a holler to be heard even above the music. "Get over it!" Rekir shouted back at about the same volume. Without waiting for a reply he launched into a march Sousa would have loved, with a rhythm so powerful and driving that a wheeled reploid could have moved in time with it. It was bold and brassy, as a march should be—qualities Rekir's neighbor didn't seem to appreciate.

"Cut out that racket! Shut up! Hey, I said shut up! Stop torturing that thing and cut it out!"

Rekir ignored it as best he could. It didn't last. His neighbor was banging on the walls before he reached the march's trio. Exasperated, Rekir pulled the trombone from his lips. "You're fine!" he hollered.

"I'm not fine, I can't think with that scrap playing!"

"You're not supposed to be thinking!" said Rekir, well aware of his neighbor's schedule. "You're supposed to be in the tube!"

"Well, I'm _not_!"

Now a new voice joined in, from the room on Rekir's other side. "Too much yelling! Stop it! I can't stand it!"

"Then turn your ears off!" Rekir shouted.

"I don't wanna!"

"And I don't wanna hear your whining!" Once more he blotted out the complaining with more music—this time a dirge, dark and leaden, eerie and unpleasant. It was more of a message for his neighbors than something he found pleasant.

They got the message.

"That's rusted solid!"

Rekir played it louder.

Another interruption—a knock at the door this time. Reluctantly, suspiciously, Rekir lowered the trombone and went to answer.

The door revealed an on-duty Hunter—not an Azzle—and Rekir was instantly annoyed; he could see the interloper struggling to keep a straight face. "Can I help you?" he asked acidly.

"Just checking up," said the duty Hunter, cheeks twitching. "Is everything alright in here?"

"Yeah, why?" said Rekir. He wasn't bothering to conceal his surliness; the duty Hunter was cracking up.

"They sent me to ensure everyone's safe here. We got a report of a sonic weapon being deployed in this area…"

"I'll give you a 'sonic weapon'!" Rekir bellowed. He charged; the duty Hunter, laughing like a hyena, fled down the hall towards the exit from Azzle country. Rekir chased him a few steps to ensure he left. Then, reviewing his situation, he decided there was something he had to check. He turned and went back to his neighbor's door.

It was locked, but that was a minor obstacle. Rekir had been a major participant in the work that had converted the former Cain Labs into the temporary Hunter Headquarters, and then further into the permanent Hunter Base. He knew all the codes. The door opened for him.

Three guilty faces looked back at him.

"I knew it!" Rekir exclaimed. "I thought there were different voices coming from here. I mean, seriously? You came here and sacrificed some tube time just to whine at me?"

The other Azzles recovered quickly. "It's a rare treat to hear something so awful," one said.

"Hearing you play makes me feel better about myself."

"But can you go back to your room? I like your music better the less I can hear of it."

Rekir shut the door again with a sigh. "Recreational heckling," he muttered as he returned to his room.

Well, fine, then—if they weren't sincere, if they were going to complain no matter what, then who cared what they thought? He was going to play for himself. It was time to play his favorite song—the sort of song that fully justified playing the trombone as opposed to, say, a flute.

Not that his fingers would have let him play flute. Fine, trumpet, then.

He swung into with gusto once his door was shut. He started with the background track, up-tempo with a Latin flavor and heavy swing. Eight bars in, he transitioned to the melody line with its exaggerated jazz rhythms, and barreled right on in to the chorus.

Ba-dut ba-waaaaarble faaall,  
Ba-dut ba-waaaaarble faaall,  
Ba-dut ba-waaaaarble faaall,  
Dut da-dut da-dut-dut **blatt**.

"Tequila!" he shouted.

Without any gap, the voices started. "What the rust is tequila?"

"Please say it's flammable!"

Rekir sighed. "I empty my spit valve in your general direction," he murmured, and he did, in fact, perform that bit of maintenance, though without malice. His chops were gone anyway. It was time to be done.

He began to disassemble the trombone, to a non-musical accompaniment from the next room. ("Keep playing—I think someone in the Base is still asleep!" "That was your best performance yet—I give it two outta ten!" and so on.) He tuned them out, and eventually they got bored as it became clear he was done.

His thoughts wandered as he cleaned and stored his trombone. He played the music for self-gratification, but it was so hard to do that privately, not in the compressed environment of Hunter Base. It was a shame, because lugging the trombone around to other locations took up that much more of his free time. Still, if he wanted to have his fun without an audience, he'd have to do something. Maybe he could borrow a transport from the hangar and find a nice, quiet spot where he could have some solo time…

He slid the trombone case beneath his recharge tube. As he clambered in, he saw that Red Bird had emerged and was staring at him. Feeling suddenly awkward, Rekir asked, "Did you enjoy the show?"

Red Bird turned in place, flared its tail "feathers", and gave a derisive "Tweet!"

Rekir sighed. "Everyone's a critic."


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's note: mass production as we know it today relies on several technical innovations that are, by the standards of civilization, very new. The most important are interchangeable parts, and division of labor (put them together and you get the assembly line). What if you don't have them? Specialization goes away, meaning things are more expensive, and much harder. You return to a world where the difference between artisans and journeymen is enormous and maintenance is a nightmare._

 _This is one of the ironies are the great doctors of 200X. They had such a high level of artisanship that they were able to create a magnificent variety of one-off products. This didn't lend itself to mass production. The result: masters are almost exclusively one-of-ones, and there's a massive gap between Light/Wily Numbers and run-of-the-mill masters. (It took Wily intervention to make the Sixth and Eighth Numbers worthy opponents)._

 _This pattern seems to continue in 21XX. We see mechaniloids being produced in factories in several places. Not reploids, though. Evidence of reploid mass production is rare—the only example that comes to mind is X4's cinematics, which show us some largely-identical rank-and-file reploids. Even then, the in-game reploids are all unique. Not until MMZ do we see large-scale mass production in evidence, and those reploids are of very low quality._

 _What I'm trying to get at with all of this is: it must be a hard life being a mechanic in 21XX._

* * *

"Maintenance checks are done, boss!"

"We're ready! C'mon, you promised!"

Douglas sighed and looked over the two junior armorers who were on-duty for his shift. They were still learning, so they didn't have full command of the things Hunter armorers needed to know. They could only work on some systems; they were several months away from being ready to stand on their own. That left the rest of the work, the hardest of the work, for Douglas.

He _could_ train them on those things specifically, even if it was beyond them. That would extend how long it took to do this job and blow his time requirements. Or, he _could_ train them in principles, not just on how to do this or that procedure but on how to be an armorer. He _could_ get them doing other work that needed to be done, and get them out of his way while he did the hard stuff—so that when it was time to teach them the hard stuff, it wouldn't be hard anymore.

Simple choice.

They looked so eager! Douglas liked to affect grouchiness, but it couldn't stick, not in front of that. Ah, to be a newbuilt again… not really, Douglas knew the folly there. Still, they were invigorating. They had no idea what they were getting into. "Alright," he said, "you ready for your challenge?"

"Yeah!" they both replied.

Douglas rubbed his hands together. "Here we go. We've got three new Hunters joining us. Your jobs are to prepare their recharge tubes for them."

A pout of disappointment might have been their response, but the armorers knew better than that. That was part one of the problem description. Part two was coming. They could barely contain themselves.

"The first two are standard models," Douglas said, drawing it out. "No individualized qualities or after-market addons. Just a gee-are-twenty-two, no mods, and a you-are-aye-thirty with the enhanced self-repair package."

"That doesn't change anything," said one of the armorers, unable to help himself. "They can get standard… ouch!"

"Shut up!" said the other junior armorer, elbowing his comrade.

So they saw through his ruse. Douglas grinned. "But the third one… heh, the third is special." He leaned back. "The third one… is a custom, one-off feraloid."

Instantly the two junior armorers were taking notes—one was working on a sketchpad, the other had raced to a terminal and was banging away at the keyboard.

"One-point-seven meters tall!" Douglas rattled off. "Point nine meters in breadth! One-thirty-five kilos in weight! Exotic materials composition cee! Twenty percent increased power capacity! Cold weather preference! Amphibious! Hands two centimeters diameter larger than forearms!"

That caught them. "Are you sure?" asked one of the trainees. The great majority of reploids had bulging forearms and comparatively slim hands, in the mode of X—though almost no reploids had X's hand-replacing busters.

"I'm sure, I've got the specs right here! No, you can't see them," Douglas added before the armorers came running. "You have to go with what I've told you. Some of it's useful, some of it's not. I want your designs for tubes for all three of them, with whatever mods you think are appropriate, in one hour. I'll grade them based on appropriateness, space-weight-cooling considerations, and ease of build. The ones that score highest, we'll build together after I'm done with this overhaul. Your timer starts…" he smacked an antique alarm clock on his workbench, "…now!"

Immediately the junior armorers scurried off. Douglas grinned to himself. An hour would give him enough time to finish his current tasks and get them signed off before the equipment needed to be used. After that he could relax—relaxing, in this case, meaning putting the trainees through their paces.

The sooner they learned how to deal with the many, _many_ unique models the Hunters sported, the better. Exercises like this forced them to innovate and adapt on the fly. It was the closest they'd get to wartime outside of, well, wartime.

Ah, wartime, Douglas thought idly as he continued his job. It was the activity that fully justified the work he put in, and also completely ruined the work he put in. It vindicated and thwarted him simultaneously. Really, that was just a fast-forwarding of the normal course of things. He could build any number of splendid artifacts. Then he had to hand them over to the field Hunters to actually use the blasted things, and before he knew it, they were ruined and needing replacement or mangled and needing overhaul. Again.

But what were tools and weapons and armor for if not to be used? A ship in port is safe, but that's not what a ship is for. No. Better to lean into it. Embrace it. _Hello entropy my old friend…_

Now that was a song he'd always liked. Humming absent-mindedly, he set about putting the finishing touches on his latest sacrifice.

"Douglas!"

"What?" he shouted, affecting grouchiness again without looking up.

"Does the electrical supply coming into the room count as part of the design?"

Douglas frowned. Why was he asking… oh. The increased power requirements. Douglas grinned. "Tell me, Bert—do you wanna rewire the whole Hunter Base?"

The marker slipped out of the junior armorer's hand. "No sir!"

"I didn't think so. My teacher always told me, Don't walk across the street to get your butt kicked—and you'd better remember that, too. Do everything you can in the areas you can control. Don't sweat what you can't. Got it?"

"Got it," said Bert dubiously. "But then… how am I gonna…"

"Figure it out!"

"Yes sir," he muttered.

"Newbuilts," Douglas muttered, and grinned. "Father of Mechanics help us."

"Who's that?"

"What?"

"Who's the Father of Mechanics?"

"Light, of course, who else?"

"Well… how's he gonna help us?"

Douglas glared at the junior armorer. "No one's gonna help you if you're not done with your design in forty-five minutes."

Bert yelped. "On it, sir!"

"You'd better be," said Douglas, his own gaze dropping once more. "Before I start thinking of what else I can use your armor for."

"You don't mean that."

"What?" His head snapped up.

The junior armorer looked like he was trying hard to wear a brave face. "One of the other armorers…"

"Jonesy, wasn't it?" Douglas grumped.

"Er…" Bert hesitated. ( _Yup,_ Douglas thought. _Jonesy for sure._ ) "…whoever it was… they said you make that threat all the time… but you never mean it."

"Well, you found me out," said Douglas. "If I bashed you up, then I'd have to help fix you. It's more trouble than it's worth."

"J—he—said it wasn't that. He said you're just a hugger."

Douglas tried to glare. It didn't go well.

"Sir… what's a hugger?"

Douglas chuckled. Newbuilts. Too young, not enough human interactions yet, to know what a hug was, let alone a hugger. "Let's just say if this alarm goes off and you're not done with your design, you may never find out."

The newbuilt smiled slyly. "And if I go over a few minutes because I want to do a good job?"

Douglas could not maintain his veneer. "You'd better hope it's a very, very good job," he said, but there was no threat in his voice.

"Yes, sir," said the junior armorer, and he grinned before turning away.

Some people, Douglas decided, just weren't cut out to be hardasses. Especially those who weren't clear on the concept of 'ass'.

He returned to his work with a smile.


	7. Chapter 7

_Merry Christmas._

 _Interesting things happen when you confine a small group of tech-literate folks in close proximity, and they spend long stretches of time being bored in-between spurts of being very extremely opposite-of-bored. Such people might not know words like "schadenfreude", but they have the time and capacity to come up with equivalents in the languages they do speak._

* * *

"You ready?"

"Sure. Not like I'll get any readier by waiting. Talk to me."

"I had it, you got it."

"…Really? Don't do this."

"Alright, this way then: cold, three out, one in, one turning. Jay-five is bubbling, Ess-seven is simmering… what?"

Cozumel, assistant squad leader in the Third Squad of the Maverick Hunters, sighed. "You know the right way, the formal way, to do turnover. Why are you on-purpose doing it some other way?"

"Lighten up!" said a jovial Vertos, Cozumel's counterpart in the Sixth Squad. A lanyard was looped around his neck, ending in a small magnetized sign reading 'Standby Squad'. "It's only eight hours of waiting and hoping no one calls. What's the worst that could happen?"

"There could be a large-scale Maverick incident where we, as the Standby Squad, would have to scramble, and then get steamrolled buying time for the rest of you jokers to gear up. That's 'the worst that could happen'."

"C'mon, what are the odds of that happening?"

"About one in one-fifty."

Vertos blinked. "Really?"

Cozumel nodded wearily. "Yeah, really. I have a dreary little rookie who likes to do that kind of math."

"He sounds like fun."

"I'll trade him," said Cozumel. "You can have him."

"I'll think about it. Anyway, who cares about the odds? I got through a whole shift just now with nothing more interesting than a gear delivery from Douglas. I was fine, so you'll probably be fine."

"Yeah, because that's not anecdotal or anything."

Vertos smiled. "I get it, you're not looking forward to being the Standby Squad. Just keep griping. Your happiness is delicious."

Cozumel blinked in confusion. "My…?"

Vertos' expression was like he'd just received an unexpected gift. "Are you kidding? You made Azzle without ever learning about the Law of Conservation of Happiness?"

" _Please_ tell me you're joking."

"Not even a little bit," said Vertos with relish. "Formally stated: 'Happiness can neither be created nor destroyed, only transferred between bodies.' If you want to add to your own happiness, you have to take it from someone else. We all know that the people of Abel City are happy and that we Hunters are unhappy, but what people don't realize is that they're happy _because_ the Hunters are unhappy. When I relieved Clement, I lost happiness, and he gained it. Now you're relieving me, and because you don't want to go on-watch, I'm harvesting your happiness. The more you whine, the better I feel."

He leaned back, as if basking. "So keep right on complaining! I can't get enough of it."

That might have been crushing to many reploids, but no Hunter made Azzle without at least a little mental fortitude. Cozumel's regard of Vertos steadied. "So… it's a game," he said carefully. "Whoever gets more happiness from the other person wins."

"Please, like you could take my happiness right now!" Vertos' voice was dismissive, but there was a hollow quality to it, which Cozumel noticed.

"You seemed like you were in a real rush to get relieved," he went on. He cocked his head curiously. "Is there somewhere you'd rather be? Something you'd rather be doing?"

"Just the usual," said Vertos, perhaps a little too casually. "Everyone wants to get off-watch. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," said Cozumel. "It just seems like you were in a big hurry, earlier."

Vertos shrugged. "I can't be in too much of a hurry, can I? Even if you relieved me this instant, I'd still have to go do my formal debrief to the Watch leader."

"But you suggested not much happened on your watch," said Cozumel. "If that's true, you could knock out your debrief in… what, ten minutes? Five, maybe?" The corners of Cozumel's eyes curved up in suggestion of a smile. "In enough time to catch the start of the sportsball game?"

"It's not called 'sportsball', it's called…" Vertos cut himself off, but the damage was done.

Cozumel's smile was triumphant. "Let's do this right," he said, deliberately. "Which units are out?"

"First, Twelfth, and Seventeenth," Vertos snapped back. "With Fifth doing gear change-out."

"Which halves?"

Vertos gave Cozumel a hard stare, as if trying to determine if he seriously wanted to know. Then he rattled off a string of designations, name-squad combos an outsider would have found impenetrable. "Happy now?" Vertos concluded.

"Oh, happier every moment," Cozumel said in tones that matched his words. "I've reversed the flow. I'm sucking up your happiness now."

Vertos' mouth twitched in agitation. "Are we done now?"

"I don't think so," said Cozumel languidly. "You told me Jay-five was bubbling. What did you mean by that? Can you give me some background info?"

Vertos' face was disbelieving. "Are you really doing this to me?"

"Well," said Cozumel with faux innocence, "I could just relieve you… but if I did, and someone asked about it, I'd hate to have to tell them I had an inadequate turnover. I couldn't bear to say that I didn't have a thorough understanding of the situation."

"That's so much static," said Vertos, who'd gone from disbelief straight to fury. "You were on the Jay-five patrol route _yesterday_!"

"But what if something changed since then?"

"Nothing changed!"

"Are you sure?"

"YES!"

Cozumel laughed. "I think I like the Law of Conservation of Happiness."

"Okay, okay," grumbled Vertos, "you've had your fun, can we get on with it now?"

"Hm," said Cozumel thoughtfully. "I could torment you a while longer, but I don't want you to do the same to me in the future. I think I'll let you go now."

"How enlightened of you," Vertos said with a roll of his eyes—a human gesture he'd appropriated, and which came in handy for a Hunter.

Cozumel composed his features into a formal, impassive state. When he spoke, it was in a ritualistic way. "I have reviewed your situation and mustered my team and I am ready to relieve you."

"I am ready to be relieved," said Vertos with utter sincerity. He took the lanyard off of his neck and held it out. "Do you have any further questions?"

"I have no further questions," Cozumel replied, and took the lanyard. "I relieve you."

"I stand relieved," said Vertos, letting the lanyard slip out of his fingers.

And, at that moment…

 _"Maverick incident in Jay-five. Standby Squad, deploy."_

Cozumel's gaze snapped up to the overhead speaker. "What? No… no!" Face twisted in horror, he looked at the lanyard which he alone was holding, and then back at Vertos. "No!"

Vertos' smile could not be any wider. He was gorging on Cozumel's happiness. "I had it, you got it," he said with delight.

Cozumel's eyes clenched shut. "I hate you so much right now."

Vertos sighed luxuriously. "And that fact is delicious."


	8. Chapter 8

_A tricky thing about writing science fiction is dealing with our expectation of technology change. We have an innate sense that the systems used in the future should be more advanced than what we're using today. It doesn't feel right for advanced systems to use technology we ourselves employ. It's largely a terminology problem. A smart phone and an old living room radio set both receive information transmitted via radio waves. If you were to refer to a smart phone as a fancy radio, you wouldn't be wrong, per se... but you would be suggesting a far more primitive device. It wouldn't feel right._

 _Maybe the Hunters probably do use radio waves to communicate, though the nature of their communications devices themselves might seem alien. Or maybe some technological shift we can scarcely imagine has presented them with some other medium to use. One way to cover all the bases is to genericize- not to refer to things as radios, and use non-specific terms instead. The phrase "communications system" doesn't imply any particular medium... though if it squawks like a radio and talks like a radio, maybe it is a radio after all._

* * *

Zero's communications system scanned continuously.

Almost no reploids had the luxury of an internal system. Most operators, from Alia on down, had external systems, though a couple of the newer purpose-built models had internal ones. Almost no field Hunters had internal systems, as power/space/weight were at too much of a premium for combat models.

Then again, almost no Hunters were the masterworks of robotics' greatest artisans.

Zero—and X, of course—had internal comms. So, even as Zero stripped, cleaned, and reassembled buster after buster, his comms system scanned. It was always, always scanning.

From the beginning, he'd been programmed to "guard" three channels. The first two were Light family channels. Zero had enough self-awareness to know he wasn't a Lightbot. How he had the right protocols to communicate on their channels was an unnerving mystery to him. Still, it meant he had two secure ways to communicate with X. That was very comforting.

The third frequency was, in fact, not a specific frequency at all. To monitor this channel Zero's comms, following his programming, jumped from one frequency to another. Both the timing of the jumps and the new frequency were determined by a complex randomizing algorithm running against the output of an atomic clock.

An atomic clock running _somewhere else_.

Zero's internal clock couldn't remain as precise as an atomic clock; no clock in a machine made for combat could. Zero knew his settings would wander over time. Eventually, they'd be different from anyone else running the same algorithm, and he wouldn't be able to communicate with them on this channel. He also knew that he was supposed to periodically recalibrate his internal clock against that atomic clock to synch up again.

He didn't know where that atomic clock was. He didn't know who the clock belonged to. He didn't know who to ask about it; instinct screamed that asking blindly would be fatal. He was sure his settings were off by now, and he was at a loss as to how to fix them.

Nevertheless, he couldn't shake the feeling that something dreadful would happen if he stopped monitoring that channel. So he let his system scan on.

Those were his pre-programmed channels. Of his own volition he'd added two more. One was the Abel City-wide general alert channel. The other was the Hunter emergency channel.

When the call came out, therefore, Zero heard it.

 _"_ _Maverick incident, confirmed Maverick in block jay-five. Seventeenth is on-scene. Fourth-one deploy to jay-six. Eleventh-two to aye-five. Standby squad to kay-five. Alert squad, arm and stand by."_

Zero was already moving. The buster he'd been cleaning was immediately forgotten. Combat subroutines were devouring all available cycles and memory.

Out the door. He traced his way through Hunter Base at high speed. Down the corridor. He narrowly avoided several collisions. Down the stairs. He left ruffled and bewildered people in his wake.

To the hangar.

In the larger space he was able to move even faster. He was to the hover cycles in the blink of an eye. He gave one the most cursory of visual inspections before deeming it suitable. He mounted it, activated it, set off.

As he exited the hangar he cut off a larger Hunter van that was just leaving. He decided it must have been the transport of the ready squad. He'd beat them out the door.

That was something.

Not relevant, though. Motion was.

The city never let him reach full speed—not for lack of trying, to be sure. Aggressive use of the cycle's altitude controls helped mitigate traffic problems. Even so, the city was still so dense there weren't straightaways long enough to max out speed.

Couldn't they have made the streets straighter? Couldn't they have made the blocks more regular? Couldn't they have, well, planned the city better? There had to be someone who was responsible for this. Whoever it was, their incompetence was costing Zero time. He resented it horribly.

This was a moment of peak danger. Every second counted.

He did a power slide ("power", in this case, meaning heavy goosing of the hover controls, with the side effect of knocking over some streetside garbage and vending receptacles) around a corner. Final approach. Ahead was the engagement zone. Typical Seventeenth—two Hunters manning a heavy weapons station behind cover, another separate and angled to cover their blind spots. Their fourth was doubtless on the Hunt inside the building they faced.

Zero belatedly realized that the sudden, unannounced appearance of a combat model might cause those Hunters to start shooting. He didn't want that, it would complicate things. He swapped over to Seventeenth Squad's working channel. "Seventeenth, Zero, I am on approach."

He finished saying it just as he arrived at the scene. He kicked off from the cycle in mid-air (it drifted away and settled gently to the ground at the end of the block); a backflip ended with his feet on the ground, facing the same building as the Seventeenth's heavy weapons. His left arm was up and slightly extended, either to act as a guard or to project his buster; his right hand was perched by his saber handle.

He was ready.

He took just a moment to assess the building, and derive its likely floorplan. Then he bent forward to dash inside…

 _"_ _All, X. Maverick dead. Conducting sweep to ensure no runners."_

Zero shuffled his foot to keep his balance. His torso rocked forward regardless. He recovered his footing in a moment. Recovering mentally wasn't as clean.

That was it? That was _it_?

His senses, still at full combat capacity, swept over the scene. Now that he was taking his time, he noticed things that weren't as important before. Like: there wasn't much damage on the building he was facing. Like: there was no evidence that the heavy weapons team had actually fired. Like: there was no billowing smoke, no blown out windows, no sounding fire alarms, no streams of terrified humans.

This had only barely been a Maverick incident.

What a letdown.

 _"_ _All, X. Sweep complete. Maverick appears to have been a solo Thirdie. Area clear for emergency services. Request medical—I have two injured humans requiring attention."_

A solo Thirdie? A lone reploid who wanted escape and decided to commit suicide-by-Hunter? That wasn't even a Maverick incident, that was…

Zero frowned. He wasn't sure what it was; his vocabulary was limited and he had no mind for metaphor.

It was _disappointing_ , is what it was.

He lowered his arms. He didn't leave combat mode—he didn't know how—but he did marginally lower his state of readiness. His systems complained about this. How, after all, could combat be over when he hadn't killed anything yet? That wasn't right. That was a waste, a missed opportunity. There was a physical dimension to this as well. His busters and sabers were still primed and in a state of high charge. It made Zero even more anxious, to have that unspent energy bouncing around inside of him.

There was nothing for it, though. There would be no fighting here.

He was frustrated, but also… relieved, maybe? Or at least reassured? Because it meant the moment of danger had passed, that moment when someone had triggered the very top of Zero's list of Most Dangerous Acts.

Even Zero wasn't totally sure if he meant dangerous for him or dangerous for whomever was committing the act. In the end, he supposed they were the same thing. Someone doing the dangerous thing was threatening Zero, which meant he was also courting termination.

With a small puff of pride, Zero realized that his list wasn't ambiguous. It was _efficient_.

He was fluent in the language of violence. Languages that required flimsy things like words were so much trickier. He swore that he'd master them yet.

Regardless, it was a good list, he thought as he retrieved the hover cycle. He'd put a lot of work into it. Occasionally he had to revise parts of it up or down, based upon bad things he saw happen or how he felt about them potentially happening. The top two items hadn't shifted—had, in fact, been the basis of the list in the first place.

The second most dangerous thing: attack Zero.

The most dangerous thing: attack X.

With some embarrassment, Zero realized X had been in no danger. A solo Thirdie would never be a threat to the Avenging Angel. He was still glad he'd come. It had been a chance to kill something, even if he'd missed that chance, and X might have needed him. He trusted X, of course, trusted him to take care of himself. Still, if there were a chance X needed him, Zero wanted to be there. He would be there.

He didn't need to linger to prove that point to X. Teasing himself with the unrealized possibility of violence was… not good. No. Best to return to base.

He kicked the hover cycle into gear. At a still-aggressive but less-frenzied pace, he made his way back towards Hunter Base.

* * *

He never did remember the buster he'd been cleaning.


	9. Chapter 9

_In the Mega Man games, we, as the players, have full visibility of everything on-screen—even things that would be out of the characters' lines of sight. We can see enemies behind walls or on floors above the heroes, and attack through those barriers without retribution. I've attributed this to extra sensors. X and Zero aren't reliant on sight and hearing alone. They have more; that more lets them "see" things normal beings can't._

 _That doesn't mean they see everything. Sometimes, they can't see what's right in front of them._

* * *

"Hey. Could you help me?"

Two Hunters, Pollus and Castus, stopped in their tracks. A reploid in Hunter support staff colors was standing outside a storage locker. He wore a plaintive expression. "What with?" said Pollus.

The reploid sagged in relief. "I'm Aegis—one of the junior armorers. I was sent by Douglas to retrieve some components from this locker. The trouble is, it's… er… locked."

"So unlock it," said Castus, in a low, slow, careful voice.

"I can't," whined Aegis. "The contents are high value, so it's a limited access locker. You know, the ones that only have a single key-holder? Moe is the only person who had access to this locker. He was called to field duty to support an assistance mission in Shiloh, and never came back."

"And no one thought to check the locker until now?"

"Now's the first time we needed it," said Aegis. "Douglas sent me up here to get something from the locker, but… well, I can't get it open. I can't go back to Douglas empty-handed! He said he'd use my arm for spare parts if I couldn't open the locker!"

The Hunters glanced at each other. "You know Douglas is the biggest hugger in Hunter Base, right?" said Pollus.

"Oh, easy for you to say," Aegis said. "It's not your arm on the line."

The Hunters rolled their eyes, almost in synch. "Fine," said Castus. "We can help, but what do you want us to do?"

"Thank you," said Aegis. "Just… help me get into this locker, could you?"

"What's so hard about that?" asked Castus.

He and Pollus looked at the locker properly for the first time. 'Locker', each of the Hunters decided, was too mild a term to describe the thing. It had the heavy, thick feel of a safe. It was large, almost scraping the ceiling; it was anyone's guess how it had ended up here. The door fit into a backstop which made an air-tight seal. There was no hinge to undo, no gap between door and frame to exploit, no screws to remove to attack the knob.

It was, the Hunters silently agreed, quite a secure place to store valuables.

"I don't have the key to open it," said Aegis. "Moe had his main keys on him when he left, and we don't know where he kept his spares."

Pollus frowned. "Tell me again why Moe took his keys with him on an assistance mission."

"I don't know!"

Castus was banging around the edges of the door, which fit quite snugly into the locker's frame. "Looks like the door's secured top, middle, and bottom," he said. He stepped away, thought for a moment, then returned and began banging again, this time all along the door's top edge. "Huh… there are more bolts up here, they're just not engaged. I wonder why…"

Aegis looked pensive for a few beats, then reached into a satchel resting against the wall. He drew a small instrument from it, which he pressed against the locker door. "I think… there," he said. "The lock has electrical connections leading top and bottom. I bet if we tried to compromise the lock, these other bolts would engage. Then we'd never get it open."

"Sure we would," said Pollus. "Just grab a breaching charge and be done with it."

"Breaching charges are shaped explosives," said Castus crossly. "You wanna spray everything inside the locker with molten metal? Go for it."

"Don't go for it!" squealed Aegis.

"Fine," said Pollus. "Let's blast the lock out."

Castus rolled his eyes. "Did you miss the whole "extra bolts will engage" thing?"

"Fine, I'll get a pulser and short that stuff first."

"You want to use an ee-em-pee weapon? Here? Inside Hunter Base?"

Pollus went sullen. "It'd work. Well, what about you? If you're so smart, what's your idea?"

Castus pursed his lips. "We could cut the bolts with a beam weapon."

"All of them?" objected Pollus. "All seven? With that little clearance? You'll be carving through the safe itself."

"Well, that's a thought," said Castus.

"No!" said Aegis. "We don't know how the contents are arranged. Any cutting in to the safe and you risk slicing or burning or spraying metal on the valuables!"

Castus shot Aegis an annoyed look. "No one knows how the insides are arranged?"

"Moe did," said Aegis ruefully.

"I'm going to be sending Douglas a sternly-worded memo," Castus promised. "Well, what if we popped the top? I don't think there are any… um…"

He and Pollus were looking up towards the top of the locker. It was hard to tell where the locker ended and the ceiling began.

"Through the ceiling?" said Pollus doubtfully. "And through the next level's floor?"

"I was thinking we'd tip it over first."

They looked at it again.

"How?"

Castus grunted in frustration. "Okay, what if we walked it over to the stairwell? That has a higher ceiling, there's room to work there."

"Can we even move it?" asked Pollus.

"Here, grab that side, and I'll get this side…"

Aegis watched in amazement as the two Hunters moved in synch, positioning themselves on either side of the locker, bracing themselves, and pushing.

And pushing.

And… pushing.

"Um…" Aegis began. "…is it supposed to be moving?"

"Yes!" the Hunters barked at him as they sagged away from the locker. One person pushing, one pulling, and they'd managed to move the locker not-at-all.

"What is _in_ this thing?" demanded Pollus.

"We'll… we'll never know if we can't get it open," said Aegis.

"That sounds like a you-problem," Pollus began, but Castus waved him off.

"I'm not crazy about it either, but rust me if I'm giving up here. What if we…"

* * *

The hallway wasn't a major thoroughfare, but neither was it wholly out of the way. Over the course of the next half an hour, the increasingly frustrated Aegis, Pollus, and Castus were joined by a handful of other Hunters. Some offered genuine suggestions, or more hands for (unsuccessful) attempts to move the locker. Others lingered for the spectacle alone.

The crowd grew. No progress was made. The locker remained stubbornly closed.

Eventually, X and Zero came by. They stood back, observing for a time, X looking thoughtful, Zero frowning. Then X leaned over and whispered something to Zero. The red Hunter's eyes went wide, then snapped into focus.

* * *

"Okay, you know what? I withdraw my objections to the breaching charge," said Castus sourly. "Bring up one of those and let's just blow this away."

"You can't do that," protested Aegis, voice and face distressed. "You'll destroy everything inside, and we lose the locker in the bargain."

"No loss," grumbled Pollus.

"I'm sorry for asking for your help," Aegis said.

"Look, let's just find the manufacturer and bring them in."

"Into Hunter Base? Are they cleared?"

"They will—oh, Zero!"

Every Hunter knew to give Zero the right-of-way. They parted before him, leaving his path to the locker clear. Aegis opened his mouth to talk to Zero, but he never spoke. He could tell the words would never hit their target.

Zero was already at the door. His hands were on it. Gently, gently, moving from place to place, by touch alone—his eyes were closed. He made no sound, and neither did his observers, as if no one dared break his concentration.

His hands moved around the lock—touching for a moment, moving, touching, moving. Then one of those hands balled into a fist. The Hunters braced themselves for violence.

The fist hand went to Zero's side, grabbed a handful of hair, and pressed the tress against and into the lock.

The blinking of the crowd was audible.

The blinking was louder when, five seconds later, there was a click.

Zero's eyes snapped open. One hand went over his back, perched above his saber. His other gripped the door's handle.

He threw it open. It banged against the wall. He leaned forwards, into the opening—

And stopped. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't there.

Applause erupted behind him. He whirled about, confusion bright on his face.

"Thank you, Zero!" said Aegis. It was plainly startling to Zero, who stepped away from the armorer, blinking rapidly. "We couldn't have done it without you!"

Zero's head jerked about distractedly before landing on X. The blue Hunter was smiling. Zero set off straight for his fellow squad leader. The Hunters parted for him but kept clapping.

"What?" said X innocently.

"You said there was a Maverick in there," Zero said accusatorily.

"No I didn't," X said breezily. "I said I _wondered if_ there was a Maverick in there." He turned to go. Zero, far from mollified, hurried after, his hair swaying gently behind him.

"But then unlocking that thing was pointless," Zero complained. "I wasted my time."

"Not at all," X replied. "You were a great help to all of those Hunters. They're grateful that you aided them."

Zero's brow wrinkled as he applied his considerable intellect to the problem. It didn't seem to help. "So?" he said after several seconds.

X's mouth dropped open. Then he smiled. "Well, someday you'll understand. We'll keep working at it."

"Now you're just being obtuse," Zero pouted.

"I believe in you," said X, "so I believe that someday you'll get it. While we're at it, we're also adding layers to your reputation, Sudden-Death Man."

Zero scowled. "I _like_ being Sudden-Death Man. It's useful and safe."

The smile broadened. "And we'll keep working on that, too."

"Keep working at _what_?"

"The reason you're bad at jan-ken-pon."

"You can't be bad at something random!"

"Exactly."

"You're mean."

* * *

 _And you thought robot hair was just decorative._


End file.
